Fair enough...just be mindful that greed and avarice have made sure we're not as far along in the green revolution as we should be, especially here in the States.

I can't agree with you more, greed and corruption are the reason why we can't push ourselves away from dependency of fossil fuels, the common person really can't switch their life of a gas powered or hybrid car when there isn't any to switch to. Except perhaps a bicycle, but living it Texas, I've learned that there just aren't some places you can get to with that.

For the Farmer's Market...When I was in Colorado a few months ago I had stopped at one while visiting family. The trust between the shop owners and people was astonishing as I'm from a big city. The person I was with was able to trade a bucket of hand grown lima beans for a homemade pie, breads, and cookies. No money was made in this transactions, and I learned later that if money isn't available most shop owners give the food away and let the buyer come back later to pay them.

Now, that's good business to me! It's amazing how much people can do when they just get along and have a bit of trust. Not saying we should trust implicitly for there are still people with vain intent, but this sort of commune really is wonderful to me. I think it's unavailable as The Overlord said to leave out greed, corruption, and morals... when really in some cases that's the problem.

I beg to differ the reason is they cannot switch from a standard or hybrid car to another is because there is no market demand for alternative vehicles such as electric cars and no will to put in efficient mass transportation due to people prefering their own vehicle. And the communities were not created around that but rather built around car ownership. Swapping from that now would be both costly and unpopular with oil prices now very low. But the market will meet legitimate demands when there is one so when people want electric cars some companies wil make them.

But lets assume Global Warming does raise sea levels it would be a good century to build more compact communities as people relocate from the crowded coasts to other cities and the creation of new ones.

Am I alone in thinking that the Green Revolution as is usually touted is more about treating the symtoms and not the cause. True we create greenhouse and other polluting gases and particles. We use up natural resources as if they were unending. But they are symtoms and not the cause ?

I believe the cause is simply that planet Earth is overpopulated with humans and getting worse by the minute. The actual projected figures for population growth are frightening What does the Green Revolution say or do about that ? I stand to be corrected here but from what I can see not a lot.

If population figures can just be stabilised at the present levels I think it would go a long way to helping the environment.

You'd get public outcry if anyone tried to do anything to achieve ZPG. After all, what are the methods of control? Birth control? Sterilization? Allowing people to die? The religious right would be up in arms because of the 'abstinence only' theory that they espouse - birth control leads to promiscuity, after all. The rest of the people would be claiming an affront on their 'reproductive rights'. And all the people that got bent in a knot over Dr. Kevorkian would go positively Gordian if the 'trimming' of extra people occurred on the far end of life. Organizations built around crisis relief would be lobbying about inhumanity if we simply allowed natural disasters to keep populations in check. China tried to stabilize/reduce their population by allowing only one child per family, and female infanticide skyrocketed because families wanted male children to carry on the family name.

No matter how clinically correct your idea might be, implementing it would be practically impossible.

Oniya I agree with you entirely. I was not advocating we could or even should try to do anything along those lines, it's far too complex an issue.

I was trying, in a roundabout and obtuse way to point out that the Green Revolution is on to a loser, it can never work because it is only addressing the symtoms and not the cause. Suppose we magically manage to cut all emissions by a very unrealistic 50% tomorrow. In just a few years time when the population doubles we would be back to the same point.

Ah, my mistake. However, combining your comment and my observations, not only does the Green Revolution not address the cause, they (and anybody else) can't address the cause - again, assuming that humanity's growth curve is the cause.

Unless, of course, we can get the space program back up off its backside, and look into creating colonies. Heck, you'd probably get a backlog of volunteers for that method of reducing Earth's population.

I see you've managed to establish a firm connection between our ecological issues and the problems of poverty and famine. There's a reason why the current rise in population is what it is; families in developing countries are big because mortality rates are high, and with a large family comes social and economical security (to a debatable degree). We (on the 'fortunate' side of the globe) did the exact same thing during the Victorian age. I shouldn't really enter this discussion, though, because just as I feel the concept of making providing basic necessities of life (medical care) a profitable business, I don't feel that the current world economical system is suited to refurbish our ecological. We've seen how a capitalistic free market on countless occasion has failed to account to the quality of human life (except for those that can afford it), "outsourcing" being one direct trivial example. Unless saving the world is somehow going to be made into a profitable business, I don't believe we can accomplish anything.

Sure, you might debate that it is indeed becoming a business, but the consequences we've suffered so far are again variations of the incompetence of the capitalistic system; we make hybrid fuel, but to make the fuel we cut down an immense amount of resources and further establish the exploitation of the people in developing countries. Meanwhile, General Motors are buying up blueprints for advanced car batteries only to lock them up in a vault.

I'm still not getting what the huge issue is here to the citizens of the advanced countries. In the United States the air overall is cleaner, waterways cleaner, water in our communites overall very safe to drink (compared to say the year 1900 when city water carried diseases) and by and large we are doing fine. There was one nation in Africa on the news the other day that years ago had food shortages and due to their ogvernment acting with public support now feeds their own people AND exports food. Why should we bother with poor nations that are not willing to organize politically and do what they have to do to fix their own problems? I do care about the poor but isn't much of this lack of a civilized government that is making the commitments with other nations to get their act together. Africa like North America is a massively resource rich nation there is no reason that they should not be able to pull itself together. As can other nations.

As for the whole Green Revolution if there was any wish by the American People to go to these technologies we would, but if you look at it there is no real will to do anything near what proponents like Gore wish. And Lomborg in his work the Skeptical Environmentalist he pointed to the fact that there is no proof halting Co2 if we can even do that as a race would stop Global Warming but that money could go to giving clean water to untold millions, health care, education of women, microcredit so the poor can start home businesses even if small cottage industry and other tested programs we can actually do and know that will have valuable impacts. For example give simple generic antibiotics to the poorest 10% of nations on Earth would save how many lives, right here and now? I suspect many.

Can you ,or anyone else, say as a scientific certainty that reducing Co2 will benefit in stopping Global Warming before we commit the trillions of dollars needed to do that as a race?

This topic cycles through the debate areas occasionally and I always try to resist restating my position, but I find myself unable yet again :)

Global warming is not the main reason I care about environmental issues. I'd be lying if I said I was sorry that something has come up that has made people pay attention to the planet they inhabit. I don't understand the lack of concern for future generations, for bio-diversity, for pollution in general. I'm also disgusted by how shallow and immediate-gratification-based most of the people I know are. There's little or no consideration for the environmental footprint of their actions, there's only 'what's easy', 'what's fast', and 'what will make me happy'. Trouble is, happy isn't about possessions, or the US wouldn't be the mecca of anti-depressants that it is. Happiness comes from accomplishments, from understanding what it is NOT to have something, to work for something, and to make that journey to achieving and attaining goals.

I think the Green Revolution is a wonderful thing because I think that Americans have become narcissistic, greedy, and lazy, caring only for themselves as individuals and giving no consideration to the community around them. I'm not saying that EVERY person behaves that way, I'm saying that I see it as the over-arching problem with our culture.

I could easily go on a huge tangent at this point, but I'll rein myself in and just leave it at that :)